I played a few rounds of Rush multiplayer last night and had a fantastic time. The graphics are great, the destructible environment keeps me on my toes, and the progession system feels both fair and tantalizing. They’re using Oblivion’s leveling system in a shooter. I can’t wait to unlock more mods for my SCAR-H assault rifle by using my SCAR-H assault rifle. Heck, I even considered buying a premium subscription because I don’t have the kind of time that teenagers do to play this thing and unlock what I want.

Given this amazing multiplayer game, why are they bolting a thoroughly despicable single player campaign to the side? As someone who prefers single player I was disgusted by the experience. It almost made me want to not bother with the multiplayer. And as a game that’s defined by its large scale multiplayer combat, you’d think Battlefield might just pretend that everyone buying this game is looking to shoot 63 of their closest friends.

Other shooters do their single player justice. Halo has a sci-fi epic to tell. Call of Duty wants to put you in a particular era or blow your mind with protagonist murdering and other atrocities. Killzone has space Nazis, which is great for fans of space and Nazis.

But Battlefield takes place in the modern day and has no surprises except the stupidity of its characters. Remember that dam you blow up? You detonate the charges while on scaffolding attached to the dam. Guess what happens. It brings me back to the days of Smash Bros. Brawl’s excruciating single player campaign.

One day I’ll be able to put the moronic exploits of Irish and crew out of my mind. How many more levels until I unlock a memory enema?